IO ; CHRISTMAS IN AMERICA.

After the young man left, grandmother came upon the scene,
with a resolute look in her face and her cap borders flying.

“ Samuel!”

“Well?”

“TI want you to cut that chicken’s head right off, right off
now, so that I can have it to bake for breakfast to-morrow.
Who do you think is coming to spend Christmas with us?
Sophia, — Sophia Van Buren, from Boston. She spent the
summer at the Crawford House, and came to the mountains
again in October. But now that the hotels are closed, she is
coming here.”

“What is ske coming for ?” asked grandfather, with a dis-
tressed look at the chicken.

‘To see Mount Washington covered with snow. She is an
“artist; she exiipits pictures in the art rooms in Boston. She is
my second cousin,’

“When is she coming?”

“This very afternoon, in the Ossipee stage. So just take that
great fat chicken, and off with its head just as quick as you can,
and I will get the feathers out of the way in half an hour.”

“But I never killed a chicken in my life, and I would rather
hate to hack the head off of such a fine-looking bird as that.”

‘“Won’t she dvownz up well ?” said grandmother.

“Rebecca, that fowl loves to live just as well as you do.
Just think of it, when the day-star rises to-morrow and the cocks
crow, she —”

“Will be dead and baked in the larder,” said Grandmother
Pool.

“And when the sun rises and the other fowls are enjoying
the sunlight — ”

“You will be eating one of the best roast chickens you ever